little by little

When I first got to San Lorenzo nearly three months ago, the first week was exciting and filled with moments like ¨wow, its great that I am here¨and älright, the peace corps experience is finally happenning¨. Yet, after a week here, I started to get bored...really bored. On the pamphlet that details my project, at the bottom of it, it says ¨this site is devoted to someone who has a lot of motivation¨, so I guess that is what the Peace Corps thinks I have. There is no set project that I walked into, as most things that I work on are based on the seasons or when schools are in session.
So with me being bored, I just started walking around my community and tried to get to know people in my broken spanish. As expected, some interesting moments with a lot of lost in translation. It is especially tough with the older people because I can´t tell if they are speaking spanish or quechua or if i just can´t understand it...probably the third option. Anyways, people would ask me what I am doing and I would tell them that I am walking around (they give me the weirdest looks...especially if i am on a hike...if you are walking somewhere, it usually is because you are working, but not exercising).
What has really helped me out are these CAT tools, which have forced me to talk to practically every different family in san lorenzo and usually during the interviews I tell them my job description and often help with their gardens or doing something with english after that. This has opened the doors into doing other projects, like creating organic fertilizers and things like that. Though one part of my work is working on the canal, we have finished up the mingas (workdays) to clean up the canal so it can be used, doing projects at this point is going to be challenging because trying to communicate with the canal president is like talking to a wall. It is amazing how this guy got elected as president because everyone I talk to complains about the water situation here. Yet...he´ll probably get re-elected...that is small town ecuadorian politics for you I guess.
It really is amazing how time goes by faster when you have something to do nearly everyday, I finally feel like I am actually doing something. The first large project that I want to work in is getting a large shredder that can take food waste, chop it up, and in time, can be used as a compost/fertilizer mixture for gardens and farms. But the shredder must be built because I doubt anyone has one at a reasonable price in Ecuador. So I am going to have to talk to engineers in Guarandsa to see if they can help a gringo out, we´ll see.
I am also excited about august as San Lorenzo has its fiestas, in which the whole town parties every weekend for a reason I really don´t know, but I am sure I will find out soon enough.